According to a 2017 study done by the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 33% of undergraduate students will change their major within three years. As it turns out, Paige Carmichael of Warwick, Rhode Island, just so happens to fall under that category. The first in her family to go to college, Carmichael chose URI for multiple reasons. “I wanted to stay close to my family,” she states, “I really liked the Engineering program, too, and I always liked URI as a school, so it wasn’t like I was settling.” With all that in mind, Carmichael enrolled her freshman year as a member of URI’s College of Engineering, though whether or not that decision would stick was a question in and of itself.
As anyone who’s changed majors knows, all it takes is one moment to inspire you to make the switch. For some it’s a class; for some, a conversation; and, for others, it’s a professor. For Carmichael it happened to be all three. While attending Professor Smita Ramnarain’s course on microeconomics her freshman year, Carmichael noticed a change within herself. She recalls one class moment in particular that truly inspired her: “Professor Ramnarain was super informative and really helpful outside of class, and one day she pulled me aside after class let out. She asked me if I’d ever thought about majoring in Economics. It seemed small, but having a teacher come up and ask me really mattered.” Ramnarain took Carmichael under her wing, and Carmichael’s newfound interest in Economics resulted in her enrolling in ECN 202: Macroeconomics, the follow-up to ECN 201. After that, she knew she had to make the switch, doing so her sophomore year. “Just taking those two classes felt like I was getting something I was missing,” Carmichael states, “The Engineering classes felt very cut and dry to me, which works for some people, but it wasn’t what I was looking for in a degree.”
Come her commencement in May 2020, Carmichael looks forward to receiving a B.S. in Economic Theory & Methods with a possible Math minor. She will also be graduating with Honors. As for the future, Carmichael aspires to follow in the footsteps of her mentor Smita Ramnarain as well as Professor Ramnarain’s mentor Nancy Folbre, a renowned economist and Professor Emerita from UMass Amherst who Carmichael got to meet at the Fall 2018 Honors Colloquium. Carmichael looks forward to attending graduate school in hopes of becoming a professor and researcher of political or feminist economics. Drawing on her own personal experience, Carmichael has this to say for advice: “Find a mentor in whatever field you’re going into. And be open to switching your major. It’s really scary and kind of a leap of faith, but it’s okay to do it and it can still work out for the better.”